Former NP(holy-cow!)R Ken Stern--Epiphany About America Away From The Liberal Bubble

It's a great read, this account of the most protected of the liberals coming face-to-face with a nation he lives in but is only recently getting to know. 

He writes frankly about discovering the America that he and his have spent their careers despising; and his friends in the GreatLiberalEchoChamber are stunned that the rest of us despise them back.

A couple of pithy quotes--

I spent many Sundays in evangelical churches and hung out with 15,000 evangelical youth at the Urbana conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect among thousands of college-age evangelicals, but I certainly didn’t expect the intense discussion of racial equity and refugee issues — how to help them, not how to keep them out — but that is what I got.

Hmmm...

At one point during my research, I discovered a video of a would-be robber entering a Houston smoke shop, his purpose conveyed by the pistol that he leveled at the store clerk. But the robber was not the only armed person in the store. The security cameras show Raleigh, the store clerk, walking out from behind the counter, calmly raising his own gun and firing an accurate stream of bullets at the hapless robber. The wounded robber stumbles out, falls over the curb and eventually ends up under arrest.

It is not just the defensive gun use that makes the video remarkable — it is Raleigh himself who evidences such a nonchalance that he never bothers to put down the cigarette that he is smoking. At the end, Raleigh, having protected his store, enthuses “Castle Doctrine, baby” — citing a law that allows a person to use force to defend a legally occupied place.

It is an amazing story, though far from unique, but you simply won’t find many like it in mainstream media (I found it on Reddit).

Well, yes. The media ignore defensive gun use, because it doesn't fit The Narrative--you know, The Narrative: All white Protestants keep sheets in their closets for the Saturday night rallies, they own guns and their knuckles drag the ground, anything they think or might say isn't worth noting....

Except, they can't account for The Cajun Navy loading up their boats onto their trailers, hitching them to their pickups full of chain saws and emergency gear and heading to Texas to rescue strangers trapped by the hurricane. They didn't need direction from duh gubbermint--they saw needs and met them. And, yes, most of them were packing; and no, they didn't shoot anyone. How could that be?

OS is looking forward to reading Mr. Stern's book, Republican Like Me and predicts that Mr. Stern will become an Official Non-Person amongst the Swamp-Dwellers. 

He should consider it a badge of honor. 

Yes, My Beloved Mrs. OS, The Man On The Radio Said 'Eighteen Thousand'

Yesterday was one of those wonderful 'day-trips' OS gets to embark upon with his beloved Mrs. OS. We're both soooooo grateful to be happily involved in work and lives that sometimes get too busy, thus it is lovely to have a day together, with a relatively light schedule.

Off we go, driving into the early morning mist with NPR news on, half-listening, when the unemployment figures for June are announced. OS sez with a start, 'Did he just say eighteen-thousand? That can't possibly be right! Gotta be a typo on his script!

Mrs. OS sez 'I heard one-hundred-eighteen-thousand.'

'OK, that's better...man, if it were only eighteen-thousand, that would be awful! The country has to generate at least 150k a month just to keep up with demographics...'

Of course, as the day wore on, the news played again, several times. And the ugly, ugly news sank in. Along with the 'revisions' that halved the numbers of jobs gained in April and May. Remember when the White House staff was crowing about the good news in April? Yep, those numbers...

Of course, we also heard from President Teleprompter, as he attempted to spin the numbers. He attributed the bad news to the fact that the House Republicans won't roll over, play dead, and raise the debt ceiling so he can spend moh munney-hunney.
(And raise taxes on employers while he's at it...)

Ahh, leadership!

Calculated Risk has the news in all its gory detail.

Vivian Schiller Quote Of The Week At National Press Club

Really, she said this, two days ago.

Schiller also defended federal funding for public broadcasting, which is currently under fire in Congress. To her credit, she avoided a tit for tat with Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who argued in an op-ed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal that public broadcasting, backed by liberals, is rich enough to go private.

Even though NPR gets about 10 percent of its revenue from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, it "plays a critical role in generating the other 90 percent," Schiller explained. "You pull out one thread, and the whole thing unravels.”

Yessss!

Vivian Schiller's Departure From NPR: Long, Long, Loooooong Overdue

The NPR account here says it was much less a voluntary, in-the-interests-of-honor moment, than a response to a fed-up board of directors who told her it was time to leave.

However, as easy as it is to scapegoat Ms.Schiller, a great deal of the responsibility for this mess lies with the board of directors themselves. After the miserable treatment of Juan Williams last fall, his firing by phone, and Ms. Schiller's contemptuously dismissive public comment about his 'psychiatrist or publicist or whatever', they should have fired her. On the spot. And disavowed her. On the spot.



They didn't do that. They were too timid to do the right thing, and probably shared her contempt of their one black commentator, who had committed the sin of NotAdheringToThePartyLine. Not acceptable to, ahem, escape the plantation.

They also hired that idiot Ron-Schiller-No-Relation who was caught in the act of being himself, wining and dining with people he was clearly told were Muslim extremist bad guys, ranting about how racist the Tea Party people are, how the GOP has been taken over by them, and then spouting off how NPR would be better off without Federal funds! They knew who he was, and what he was, or they should have. That's what a board is supposed to do--mind the store.

All those people Ron-Schiller-No-Relation just tarred and feathered verbally will be more than happy to make sure that is a reality. NPR, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, are Toast. Stick-a-fork-in-'er, Bubbah! She's done!

And that day is also loooong overdue. NPR allowed itself to become a handmaiden of the political and cultural Left, the kookier the leftie the better. Since many of the affiliates also broadcast classical music during their days, guess what? After four decades or so, many people associate classical music with The Left, and vice-versa. Had NPR been a handmaiden of the kooky Right, the effect would have been the same--a discrediting of both enterprises.

OS stopped sending money to them after 9/11, when he began hearing sympathetic accounts of suicide bombers being broadcast from NPR. The term 'morally repugnant' does come to mind....

It is now up the local boards of the local affiliates to decide how to go forward on the local level, with their local donors and advertisers. One way or another, the federal dollars are going to go away. There are great sources of programming around the world to choose from and purchase, both in terms of talk radio programs, music and culture, news and opinion, representing a wide range of interests and views. And, in a return to the days when local radio was a joy to experience, they could (GASP!!! OMG!!!) develop their own programming. OMG!!!! That's, that's...hard WORK! We'll get our hands dirty, and some of it might not be successful, and some of it might end up with an audience of (eeewwww) normal Mom-n-Dad kind of people, who drink (ewww,gross!)...beer, and go to church.

OMG!!!!

Not all of NPR's programming was terrible. Science Friday, for instance, is always a fun listen. Car Talk is great fun. Scott Simon on Weekend Edition on Saturday morning often does wonderful interviews.

Let the good stuff live, and the loonie-toonie-leftie nonsense can go find its own audience, without one taxpayer dollar spent for either.

This will be a good thing. This moment is loooong overdue.

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning On College Campuses

OldSouth took The Lovely Mr. OS to lunch yesterday, in celebration of seeing the sun for the first time in two weeks. On the way, we listened in on this chilling interview on NPR:

A new book by a team of researchers reveals some troubling findings: today’s college students are spending 50 percent less time studying than students did several decades ago. And 45 percent of those surveyed say they didn’t have “any significant improvement in learning” in the first two years of college.

We’ll speak to one of the researchers, Professor Richard Arum of New York University. He is the co-author of “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.”

OS was troubled to hear this, incredulous even, especially given the realities of skyrocketing costs and student loan indentured servitude that students are entering in order to attend college. What kind of kid blows off these sorts of opportunities, especially when the world clamors for a place at our educational table?

Then, after lunch (our first date of the year), Mrs. OS gets a call from one of her college students, who has just been offered one of the best opportunities of her young career, and she was wheedling Mrs. OS, her major professor, to (a) either excuse her from it, or (b) let it be considered an entire semester's work in her major subject. (It's about a week's work to complete, two at most.) Mrs. OS was not willing to do either, but indicated her willingness to factor it in to the overall semester's work. Tearful student, proclaiming how unfair it all is, etc. etc. etc.
Mrs. OS held the line, and told the dean to do likewise via a later email. Another uncompensated hour dedicated to student crisis on a day off...over news that should have made the student dance for joy.

Upper-class students in her major in other universities would kill for this opportunity, we were telling one another.

But, maybe not...Pfft!

The Rats Quietly Depart The Ship: Ellen Weiss Of NPR Resigns

Rahmbo headed back to Chicago early. ObamaBob's gone. The economic team that managed to run both the deficit and unemployment rate to dizzying heights is headed back to academia, where they will be lionized for their 'vision'.

And the fink who fired Juan Williams over the phone has just resigned. Her boss will be forgoing her bonus.

It's dawned upon the NPR board that their homeboyz in the past Congress never managed to pass a 2011 budget. And that there's a whole new bunch of people in Congress, many of whom NPR managed to alienate last year, now in charge of the checkbook.

A sacrificial lamb becomes necessary at such a moment.

Bye-bye, Ellen! Let's see if this has a sobering effect on those she leaves behind.

From Fox News:


The NPR executive who sparked a public outrcy in October by firing journalist Juan Williams is resigning from her job, the organization announced Thursday.

Ellen Weiss resigned as senior vice president for news on the same day that NPR's board of directors completed its independent review of the dismissal of Williams. The directors recommended new internal procedures for personnel decisions and disciplinary action.

The board expressed confidence in CEO Vivian Schiller's leadership but voted to forgo her 2010 bonus because of "concern over her role in the termination process." Schiller drew criticism in November for saying Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between him and "his psychiatrist or publicist" -- comments that she later apologized for.

Williams, who is a Fox News contributor, cheered the announcement.


Let us hope the January trickle becomes the 2011 Stampede of Leftists, beating it out of town while they can, seeking shelter where they may. And, may shelter be difficult to locate. If you feed them, they just hide out and plot their return to power.

All Things Considered, Unless It's An Opinion We Don't Like: The Juan Williams Firing

But isn't that what they were paying him to do? It appears to OS that the champions of All Things Obama were unhappy with Mr. Williams for daring to appear on The Network That Dare Not Speak Its Name anyway. Remember the first few months of Himself's administration, when they studiously pretended Fox News didn't exist.

They found that approach, well, didn't work.

But NPR's brass likely never forgave Mr. Williams for being realistic, and for exhibiting an entreprenurial tendency to enjoy making money at what he does well, in the private sector. Some sins are unforgivable.

So, his comments on O'Reilly gave them the pretext they needed to vote him off the island.

They are (hold yer' breath, ever'body, 'cuz theeeze iz inflammmmmatory wordz!):

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams told host Bill O'Reilly during a discussion on the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims.

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.

Williams also commented on remarks by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad warning Americans that the fight is coming to the U.S.

"He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams said.

Hell-bells, Mr. Williams! OS gets nervous about that too! Matter of fact, he was at Heathrow that strange day in August 2006 when the plot was foiled to put a bomber on a plane to America with the explosive hidden in a bottle of baby formula. The plane OS and one of his kids was on was one of the targets, it appears. OS spent the hours waiting, knowing something was terribly rotten in Denmark, and deliberately steering himself and the kid away from the many women dressed in full purdah, away from the nervous crowds, and towards emergency exit doors that appeared to head out to the tarmac. If the crowd began to panic, OS figured it would be better to be alive and under arrest with lots of 'splainin-to-do-Lucy than dead or 'splainin to Mrs. OS why our child had died.

OS gets nervous and avoids people who wear the Confederate flag as a shirt, or large tattoo. Or stupid Christian religious slogans. Or anything that indicates that they have some agenda to impose upon the rest of us.

That's not bigotry--that's a healthy sense of self-preservation, ya'll!

But, the good new is: NPR gets some tax money, yes, but they get a heapin' helpin' of their operating revenue from the local affiliates, who depend upon small donors to fund their operations.

Don't take a genius to figure this one out. After the local affiliate went to 'All-Obama-All-The-Time' and quit broadcasting classical music, OS's checkbook shut tight. Nothing sez you gotta' give these people money, or even honor your pledge to them. They sure as hell haven't honored their pledge to you! Check and make sure they're not sucking at the public teat via the state or local budget.

Take their money away, and they go away.

Go git' em, Mr. Williams! Speak yoh' mind! Illegitimi non carborundum!

The Mexican Drug War On Both Sides Of The Border: NPR Talk Of The Nation 19 October 2010

OS was driving to the bank and heard this conversation on NPR. Barely believing his ears, he looked it up this morning.

Jason Beaubien, NPR's Mexico City correspondent, was being interviewed about conditions on the ground in Mexico, and it was even more alarming than OS had believed--and OS has a pretty dark opinion of that part of the world.

The upsetting part was buried in the middle:

(Beaubien) You look at the number of drugs that are getting seized, that continues to be incredibly high. You know, you look at the insecurity, it seems like more parts of the country seem to be more insecure. Tamaulipas, which also it's just above Monterrey, is sort of below south Texas, below Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville, that area - that's where they killed these 72 migrants earlier this summer. That part of the country really feels I find it frightening being there at times. And people don't go out at night. You get major shootouts. The press doesn't report anything about what's going on.

You know, I was up there just two weeks ago, and the Zetas actually have lookouts along the river. And they're just...

CONAN: The Rio Grande?

BEAUBIEN: Along the Rio Grande, on their side, making sure that no freelancers go and just sort of move people without paying Los Zetas off to...

CONAN: So the Mexican the American government can't patrol the border, but the Zetas do.

BEAUBIEN: Yes. Yeah. It's incredible. And the migrants are terrified of them. And the locals know that if you want to move migrants across or if you want to smuggle across here, you have to cut a deal with the Zetas in order to do this. And there's a sense, in that part of Mexico, particularly, that things are really under the control of the cartels. And when you start talking about failed state I don't believe at all that Mexico is a failed state. But there are parts of it which feel like they have failed and which feel like the government is completely not in control.

Did you catch the remark? Sometimes, they speak in such dispassionate tones, one barely perceives what is being said:

'So the Mexican the American government can't patrol the border, but the Zetas do.' And this is from left-edge NPR, ya'll!! These aren't paranoid guys who live in Momma's basement, collect guns, and play soldier on the weekends.

The whole transcript is at the link above. It's a balanced view, and not all bad news.

And Beaubien makes a most valid point--when we cease to be a market for the poison they sell, they will go away, and sell it to someone else. When we control our own border, the bloodshed south of us will abate dramatically. Innocent people are being murdered, and live in fear and despair, because of our out-of-control appetites, and our blind refusal to do the minimal things necessary to enforce our southern border.

It's not a Democrat/Republican issue, ya'll. It's a good/evil issue. We are allowing innocent people to be irreparably harmed because we will not do the right thing. And this is a problem we can go a long way toward solving.

If we have the will.

Words Matter: Despite/Because, Because/Despite--NPR Story On Lotteries

The headline from NPR is: More People Buying Lottery Tickets Despite Recession.

Or, perhaps, is it because? When people lose the existential connection that work, effort, thrift, and virtue create wealth, they lose hope. Might as well buy that lottery ticket, lightning may strike, maybe I'll finally get rich off all those other rubes who buy lottery tickets just like me.

When people see the worst sort of hustlers enrich themselves, leaving the wreckage behind for others to clean up, they lose faith. Might as well buy that lottery ticket, lightning may strike, maybe I'll finally get rich off all those other rubes who buy lottery tickets just like me. At least I didn't toss the economy over the cliff in the process.

When people see governments selling lottery tickets, they hear the message: Wealth happens via the lightning strike, mere capricious fortune, so instead of going to the bookie or the numbers game, we'll run numbers instead. The sense of integrity departs the culture. Might as well buy that lottery ticket, lightning may strike, maybe I'll finally get rich off all those other rubes who buy lottery tickets just like me.

(Besides, it's fer educashun--can't argew with educashun, can we?)

Despite.

Because.

In any case, it is heartbreaking to walk into convenience stores and see dispirited-looking people handing over cash for a 1 in 40-million chance of hitting the magical number that changes everything for them.

Passive Verbs, Active Verbs: Words Have Meaning, Unless...

...you're doing a story for NPR, and need to cover for the environmental Luddites.


For decades after World War II, the small town of Oakridge in the southern Cascade mountains of Oregon was a booming lumber town. But by the early 1990s, the lumber industry had collapsed, and Oakridge has struggled ever since, losing families and businesses.

So far, so good. Change happens. Industries come and go. Nobody's making horse buggies in great numbers anymore, for instance. So, we can use a passive form of 'collapse'. Rather like the Spanish reflexive verbs: 'se rompio'--it broke itself.

Then, a couple of paragraphs later, we discover the cause of the collapse!

There were lots of economic factors at play, but the death knell for lumber came in 1990 when the federal government listed the spotted owl as a threatened species and declared much of its habitat in the national forests off-limits to loggers.

The federal government, at the behest of environmental groups like Sierra Club, collapsed the economy of the area. That's what happened! All those people, surrounded by the riches of a forest that could allow them to prosper forever, with sane management, marooned in the name of the Spotted Owl.

The rest of the story talks about a town full of empty storefronts, depopulation, welfare dependency, food banks, and 350 miles of bike trails for visitors to ride. Retirement residences for the well-heeled. And oh-so-chic restaurants for them to dine in. And people on unemployment benefits moving in, because they are too far out of the way for the gubbermint to insist they seek work. And a former logger, now commuting 40 miles each way to do shift work at an ice-cream factory. And...and...and...

The story repeats again and again. The journalists describe this sort of travesty as if it appeared out of nowhere, using the passive verb. The people affected, living in poverty in a sea of wealth, know this is not the case.

OS drives through once-thriving small towns in his beloved South, and the story repeats again and again. Kentucky towns collapsed, because the gubbermint declared war on their way of life--tobacco--and nothing ever showed up to replace it. Tennessee and Alabama towns now dependent on income derived from industrial poultry farming, with periodic raids on the processing plants to clear the Mexicans out. Two hydro dams in Tennessee were stopped dead in their tracks in the past two decades, because the environmentalists found their own local versions of the Spotted Owl. That power is now needed, and the towns that could have benefited (not the least from the flood control) are shells, and poverty is just the normal state of being. But, the hiking trails, fly-fishing, and scenery are lovely. If you have the leisure time and resources to do that sort of thing. The forests are overrun with deer, because not enough people are hunting to control the herd. Check the fishing regulations of some states--enough to keep anyone home.

At least ten years behind schedule, State Route 840 is being completed around Nashville, tying East-West to the South without the terrifying drive through Nashville's snarl. It was held up, because one group decided that they should have the right to claim thousand-year-old Indian burial mounds as sacred, and another group wanted to be certain no exits would ever be built near their tony country estates. The taxpayers had to pay them off, and finally, finally the road is being paved. Just in time for the Great Recession. And who is going to invest into industrial facilities in all that industrial park acreage developed and set aside?

Jobs aren't created, because the gubbermint and their enviro/socialist allies, despite proclamations to the contrary, thinks of the businessman (and woman) as the enemy. At every turn, in every transaction or initiative, the gubbermint has its hand out, via a tax or regulation. Rational investors move production (and operations) overseas. We buy iPhones and other gadgets made by slave labor overseas, and carry them with us while we ride our trail bikes through the virgin forest, near the town full of impoverished descendants of the people who settled the area and made it flourish. The solidly-built houses and buildings of the remaining neighborhoods and Main Streets stand in testimony of what they accomplished, and what is being destroyed.

And, the poverty and cultural malaise quietly grow.

The passive verb is not appropriate to our situation.

This country made some terrible cultural decisions in the 1960s and 1970s, and they have come home to roost upon us. Until we begin to make some healthier decisions, in the active voice, the decline will continue.

OS now rails and works in the hopes that his grandchildren will prosper. It may almost be too late for his children.

Passivity, in any sense of the word, is not an option.

Even NPR Won't Propogandize Anymore

If they wish to keep their listeners, with donors writing checks to local affiliates, they must eventually tell the truth. Even liberals notice the smell, when you lie to them long enough.

And they report: No economic growth in June.

The pace of consumer spending stalled in June and personal incomes failed to increase, further evidence that the economic recovery slowed in the spring.

Personal spending was unchanged in June, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the third straight month of lackluster consumer demand. Incomes were also flat, the weakest showing in nine months.

The lack of growth for spending and incomes shows the economy ended the second quarter on a weak note. Many analysts believe growth will slow further in the second half of the year as high unemployment, shaky consumer confidence and renewed troubles in housing weigh on the year-old economic recovery.

Americans appear to be preparing for tough times. The personal savings rate rose to 6.4 percent of after-tax incomes in June, the highest reading in nearly a year. The savings rate is now about three times the 2.1 percent average for all of 2007, before the recession began.

Consumer spending is closely monitored because it accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.

Note to The One: If you ram through outrageous federal takeovers of entire portions of the economy (like health care), demonstrate your incompetence and venality when an oil well blows up (by not picking up the phone to call the oil company...), put 39 million people on food stamps, and generally create anxiety about the Brave New World you have planned for us all, guess what?

People lose faith in the future, and sit on their cash. Given events of the past sixty months, what sane person would finance a car for the next sixty?

Even NPR, lead cheerleader for The One, can't keep up the pretense anymore.

You on yoh' own thea, Missah Prezident.

James Taylor And Carol King Interview: Joy And Love

And, on a much much much happier note, today NPR broadcast a delightful interview with James Taylor and Carole King. Much too much to tell, and it would spoil the joy of listening to the conversation. Take the time to listen. You'll thank OldSouth for it later.

If you've been patient enough to put up with OS, you'll have read reference to his mis-spent youthful days in the record industry. It was the worst of times most of the time, with just enough absolutely wonderful stuff included to extend the torture.

OS's beef with it all was that he was working in a business that seemed hell-bent on kicking the legs out from under the culture, forever looking for some non-existent lowest common denominator of vulgarity where the real money could be made. He kept protesting that this was a prescription for industrial suicide, but found that talk like that only pissed people off. So he shut up, moved on, and stood by (well out of the path of the falling bricks) as the industry imploded. No great loss, probably a good thing on balance. He just wishes he had never spent a dime on his years of NARAS membership--the most useless organization on the planet, hands down.

Pop music does not have to corrode the culture. For many years, it contributed greatly to it. James Taylor and Carole King are living proof of that, and should be celebrated while they are still with us. Taylor is 62, King is 68, closing in on the final few years of their careers. OS hopes that the twenty-somethings who make up a goodly portion of their show audiences will catch the vision, and both demand and create pop music that doesn't rot the soul.

Again, OS hopes his readers will take the time to listen to this interview. If enough folks listen and take it to heart, maybe the culture will move an inch or two in the right direction.

Driving Around With NPR On The Radio: Even They're Beginning To Question...

...how this BraveNewObamaWorld thing is working out.

Mr. and Mrs. OldSouth had a couple of errands to run--pick up Mrs. OS's car from the shop, purchase a tarp from the farm supply place, even got a lunch at the diner for all that driving around. Life is good today...

NPR was on the radio--always interested to hear what the nation's most enthusiastic Kool-Aid drinkers are up to. And, it is interesting, more interesting now than ever. It's dawning on a few of them that maybe (just maybe!) they've been had, and The One is actually doing more harm than good, and they are His useful idiots.

Since the early 70's, the NPR spiel has been predictable: There's this terrible situation involving (fill in the blank), caused by all those greedy WASP's determined to enslave and starve the victims of (fill in the blank). If only we had another government program, and raised taxes a teeny-weeny bit more, why this problem could be solved. OS used to be able to time the final thirty seconds or so of each presentation, because right after the erudite opinions of Professor (fill in the blank) of (fill in the blank) State U, came the inevitable assertion that more government and more spending were our only solution and salvation.

Today was different: The report on Obama's attempt to shut down the Gulf Coast oil industry points out in stark terms the massive (and permanent) dislocation that will result if Himself prevails (and sho'nuff, He's in court, tryin' to locate a judge who will collude with Him--do I smell an appointment to the appeals court quietly being proffered?)

It's not pretty--and pretty unflattering to The Winner of the 2010 Noble Peace Prize.

The second feature was an interesting conversation between BP's COO Doug Suttles and NPR's Melissa Block, who took the opportunity to really to skewer him. He took it in stride, and unlike The One, never lost his temper, or became petulant. Further, NPR knew how to locate BP's COO and actually have a conversation with him. Suttles was willing to endure a long interview with someone from an organization known for its hostility to the private sector. That's more than Obama ever bothered to do, on either count.

Suttles held his own, with uncomfortable questions peppered at him. On the whole, he displays a lot more qualities of leadership than The Beloved Leader. BP really screwed the pooch in the Gulf. He admits it, and talks in specifics about what is being done to remedy their screw-up. OS invites you to listen, and compare him to the Corp of Engineers and EPA dolts who are preventing Gulf Coast communities from saving themselves. OS was surprised to hear the interview aired, with no introductory or trailing vitriolic comments.

Remember, ya'll: BP has no upside in a huge disaster--they have to pay for it. Obama and company are presented with a huge opportunity to seize power and bleed BP dry if things truly come unwound. Where does the moral hazard lie?

Again, the signs are subtle, and there are more examples, but slowly slowly slowly, the doubts are beginning to surface, as NPR presenters talk with authors about the reality of evil, school board members in small towns about the impossibility of paying for compliance with Federal mandates while keeping the doors open, about pension funds that are eroding, violence on the border, unemployment as a way of life, businesses shuttering. After all those years of shilling for the Left, NPR is now stuck with reporting the results.

Their discomfort is becoming palpable.

OS just grins and drives.

'Chicken, meet roost'...